Hex
by darkangel38
Summary: After 'treating' a patient for a serious condition, Dr. House starts to exhibit the exact same symptoms himself. But it's nothing he can medically cure with a perscription: It's demonic possession.
1. Patient X

**Title:** Hex

**Rating:** T

**Genre: **Angst/Drama

**Pairings:** No specific pairings - Friendship

**Summary:** After "treating" a patient for a serious condition, Dr. House starts to exhibit the exact same symptoms himself. But it's nothing he can medically cure with a perscription - It's demonic possession.

**A/N:** Greetings House fans! This is my first attempt at a House fic; you could say I was inspired by reading all of yours. With most of my other fics, I would just sit down and start writing and then soon loose inspiration and never end the story, but this one I have all planned out and have been doing so for a week. I'm going to try to make this a long one and I hope you all enjoy it. Oh, and we all love reviews and I'm no different:)

**Hex**

_"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." _

_- Oscar Wilde_

**_

* * *

_**

The rain pitter-pattered against the window pane and he stared out towards the street.

"What is the point of a mail man." Pause.

"Nobody even likes mail. All mail is bad, even those fancy Christmas cards with the prancing deer on the front from Barbara Jones, the slut in high school who you wanted to stab. You know why people like to exchange Christmas cards? Because they like to brag about themselves. 'Oh, little Billy is only ten years old, but he's reading at a 56th grade level! Little Susie just won the spelling bee world competition! I dyed my hair blonde, lost one hundred pounds and now I look like Britney Spears! My husband, the model-turned actor-turned musician, and I have great sex for hours, everyday! And before I end this novel about my awesome life which is better than yours, Merry Christmas - I hope you get into a car accident during the holidays and they need to fly in a famous plastic surgeon to sew your face back together, but he won't be able to do it, because you're too ugly, Ha Ha!'" He regripped the cane that was standing between his legs and kept his gaze fixated out the window.

"And if it's not Christmas Cards coming in love colored envelopes, you're getting bills. Bills for necessities that society thinks you need, bills for not paying your bills on time, and even more bills for ignoring the bills for not paying your bills on time. The next time you see Barbara Jones, tell her instead of sending you a shitty card with mating deer on the front, slip in a ball of cash, a bag of cocaine, or rather a bullet and a pistol-"

"Why are you telling me all of this?" His rant was interuppted and House snapped out of his stare from the window. He turned his head to the left and raised his eyebrows at the female patient wearing the ugliest green sweater he had ever seen in his life.

"Well I assume you either A, send and receive these holiday greeting cards I speak of, or B, your name is in fact Barbara Jones, and if that is the case, I don't apologize." He tilted his head waiting for her to pick a choice and drummed his fingers over the cane impatiently.

The woman in the puke green sweater that needed a good lint cleaning stared at him as if he was about to start singing and dancing, or jump up and do something equally insane.

"We've been sitting here for twenty minutes and all you've done is stare out the window and talk about mail. I have to go home to make dinner for my children, and all you're doing is wasting my time. Now can you tell me what's wrong with me?"

House almost snickered at all the possible jokes he could start off with. Keep the middle aged mother there all night long, going through lists of what could be wrong with her. He would start with the sweater.

Instead, he groaned softly and stood up and shuffled to the other end of the room by the door to Exam 1.

"Now you know what it feels like," he simply said and leaned heavily on his cane, watching her.

"Excuse me?" _Uh oh, the woman was starting to get fiesty. _

"You have EMD, Exotic Newcastle Disease," he said simply and waited for her reaction. He knew that disease was only found in birds, but he also knew that she would have no idea and would go into panic.

The woman took a deep breath and looked down at her pudgy hands.

"I..I knew it. I should have come in earlier, shouldn't I? Oh what am I going to tell my children - Oh dear..How much time do I have?" The woman was close to tears.

"About five minutes, quick! Tell me your dying wish!" He couldn't have been more sarcastic, with his eyes bugging out, and his apathetic attitude.

Her face cut from sorrow to angry in a matter of seconds and she glared at him. Took her long enough, he thought.

"Why you - I'm going to sue-"

"You're a hypochrondiac. Go home. Make that pot roast for your three children. Turn on the news and make fun of people dying in train wrecks like the rest of us. Nothing is wrong with you." House rolled his eyes and opened the door to flee the scene.

The woman held out her arm for him to stop.

"No, wait - but my throat is still sore!" Her right hand went up to her throat and she massaged it gently.

"So have a cup of tea." House perscribed as he limped from the room. "And change that ugly sweater!" he ordered loudly. "We do live in a society," he added grumbling under his breath.

He hated the clinic. That should come as no surprise to anyone who's ever been to a clinic, really. Snot. Crying babies with snot, yelling children kicking the vending machines with snot, parents shaking hands - after touching snot. Snot was gross. People were gross.

Dr. Greg House limped away from the patients and flipped up his left wrist. Only fifteen minutes until he was free. _Free to do what?_ Why go home of course. _Go home to what?_ Shut up.

It was no secret. Okay it was, but he knew the truth. The depression bug had nabbed him and for the whole week he had been sitting and staring out the window wondering what was the point of anything. Christmas cards had just been one of the many random things to pop into his head to criticize. Putting down people was his own way of boosting his self esteem, which was on it's way down the toilet and to the bottom of a septic tank. He would never admit it though. Not for a billion dollars. (_Or maybe he could lie his way to the billion dollars..) _

His leg was bothering him again, and he slumped down into a chair out of site from hospital personnel. After popping a vicodin, he planned on going back up to his office and counting down the very second to five o'clock. House had just taken the pill canister from his jacket pocket when a shadow appeared into his vision. He looked up expecting to see only one person, and was proved right. He was _always_ right.

Lisa Cuddy looked at her own wrist watch and down at House with an amused look on her face.

"Thought you could hide from me? You still have twelve minutes left on your shift," she crossed her arms, holding a file and stuck out her leg. Her 'power pose'. House was quivering and dying in his chair from fear. Although not quite. He popped two pills, and returned the canister to his pocket. He chewed them slowly, leaving a large silence before he spoke.

"Dr. Cuddy, have I ever told you the story about when I was a boy, and I had my little miniature cane, and there was this girl at school whose name was Liza Muddy, and I didn't like her one bit-" House played around with his cane, swinging it from right hand to the left as he spoke.

"House-" Cuddy sighed, amused by what he was trying to do.

"-And one day she came up to me and was being mean, quite like you're being right now in fact, so you know what I did? I took my itty bitty cane," he raised the cane and anchored it under his arm as if he were holding a machine gun, bottom facing out," took careful aim at Muddy's face," House pointed the cane at Cuddy," and-"

"House!" She flipped up her wrist again and sighed when she noticed that whole charade had wasted two more minutes of his clinic duty. She loved torturing him with this, and would make him work till the last second if she could. "There's a patient in Exam 2. You go see him without a fight and then you're done for the day."

House placed his cane back in an un-crazy position and rested both hands on top. He tilted his head to the right and stared into space considering her offer.

"Orr.. I could just sit here and stall you for another twelve minutes and leave the guy with the snotty nose in there for you," House mused and gave her a smug grin.

"What if I offered no clinic duty for four months?" Cuddy smiled expecting him to leap from his chair and sprint to Exam 2.

Jesus music played throughout the clinic and the lights went dim. Halleluja chorus angels stepped out from the side and began to sing beautifully as his eyes went in wonderment, and excitement. A natural high. He was God.

Actually he was just sitting there with his mouth hanging open. Cuddy was waiting for the drool to slide down his chin from the salavation.

"Are you serious?" She couldn't possibly be. If she was - House was convinced he was having a heart attack.

"No, but there's a lollipop in it for you if you do," Cuddy smirked at the rate his face fell as he aged another ten years.

He muttered something under his breath about Muddy being a meanie and stood up straight back onto his cane. She thrust him the file and grinned at her success. House was no match for her. She was woman - hear her roar.

House limped away, head down looking at the floor.

Just as Cuddy was about to leave, House called out, "Oh by the way, you might want to take that toilet paper off your shoe that you've been dragging around - I don't think that's very hygenic!"

* * *

House put his hand onthe door to enter Exam Room 2 and about fifty visions of who could be inside flashed through his mind. An elderly man, complaining of knee pain: painkillers, next. A middle aged man screaming and yelling for the pain to stop: drug addict, next. A snotty child and his mother who cried too much: fluids and rest, next. All boring, boring, boring. If he handled any more of these insignificant cases, he was going to blindly induce some sort of disease on _himself_ and take the case. 

He entered the room to see a young man sitting inside and scratching the back of his neck. House shut the door, leaned his cane against the wall and flipped open the file. _Time to tell him he needs to get back on the herion and he won't itch so much.. _he thought to himself, watching the kid scratch his skin off.

"Jason Adler. Eighteen years old. Born in a barn when you were two years old and raised until you were thirteen. You like romantic walks on the beach and rollercoasters that don't go upside down," he pretended to read off the chart he was holding.

The kid looked at him with a weird look on his face and stopped rubbing his neck.

"It says all that?" he asked confused.

"No," House limped two steps closer to him and closed the file, "but by the look on your face after mentioning the word 'rollercoaster' I'd say that statement wasn't false." He put the file down behind the kid.

The kid said nothing and wiped some sweat from his forehead.

"So what seems to be the problem?" House went into doctor mode and started studying the exterior of the guy, mentally writing down all symptoms he could spot without the patient even saying anything. Fever: check. The guy was sweating buckets. Flushed face: check. The fact that it looked like the kid was going to blow chunks: check. Rollercoasters had been the key.

"I just feel like crap," the kid said in response and didn't look House in the eye, but more so at the floor. The corner of House's mouth almost went up in a smile. Now if more people would just say that from the beginning. 'I just feel like crap'. What a wonderful and certainly not vague description.

"Care to enlighten me with the definition of 'crap'?" House almost went to look at his watch again, when the kid started breathing heavy.

"I think I'm going to puke," he closed his eyes.

House leaned over and gave the kid a container from a counter. He stood and watched the kid ralph into the plastic bucket and wished he almost had what he had. He could tough out a few days of a stomach bug and would gladly trade off his leg for it. But noo, he got the short straw in life, always.

"You my friend, have the flu," he took the barf bin away from the kid and tried not to look at the mess as he put it back on the counter. He was glad he wasn't a nurse. The kid wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and House went back to the file he had put down earlier. There was a fly on it. He swatted his hand at the bug and it flew up and started going in circles.

"I feel really weird. My whole body aches and I get these dizzy.. spells." He wiped at his forehead again, his eyes closed.

House clicked his pen, mumbled, "mm hmm" and was about to write down FLU in big bold letters when something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.

The kid's hand had twitched. And it wasn't a little one either, it had been a full on jerk.

"Do that again," he tested. Who knows, maybe he had been swatting that damn fly away, or an imaginary wombat.

The kid turned to look at him slowly, his eyes not quite following. "Huh..?" he asked, confused again.

House wasn't even looking at his face now, but at the kid's other hand. The one that hadn't invisibly slapped anyone. It was resting on his right thigh, wrist pinned down and the hand flailing.

He dropped the file again and clicked on the pen light he kept in his pocket. He shone it into the kid's eyes.

One pupil was bigger than the other. Bingo.

This kid had a brain tumor.

* * *


	2. Come Again?

**Title:** Hex

**Rating:** T

**Genre: **Angst/Drama

**Pairings:** No specific pairings - Friendship

**Summary:** After "treating" a patient for a serious condition, Dr. House starts to exhibit the exact same symptoms himself. But it's nothing he can medically cure with a perscription - It's demonic possession.

A/N: 161 hits and 4 reviews. Thank you for those kind reviews and also to those who are reading but didn't care to comment. I'm trying to write as much as I can between work and sleep and all of that living crap, but as you'll see with this chapter the story is picking up. Enjoy! And R/R :)

**Alipeeps:** Ahhh I was hoping nobody would notice that one :) When I submitted the story I kept finding typos and re-uploading the chapter. Then it just stopped working for me and I gave up and let that one slide. Looks like I've been typing the word "website" too often huh?

**Hex - Chapter 2**

_"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." _

_- Oscar Wilde_

_**-----**_

"Are you excited?" House waved the folder around that he was holding in his left hand. Wilson walked along side him, hands dug deep into his jacket pockets.

"Am I excited that a kid might be dying? No," he smirked in response as the two rounded a corner and came up to the conference room. "I don't know why you're so excited, it's just a tumor, not malaria."

House raised his eyebrows as he went to slide back to the glass door to the room where his sheep were already flocked.

"Ah but you see my disciple, this is no ordinary tumor." House walked into the room to and immediately went towards the light board.

"Patient X, eighteen years old. Complains of flu like symptoms, dizziness, disorientation, weakness and he has a quite handsome twitch in his right hand," he opened the folder and stuck two MRI scans up.

"Patient X. He doesn't have a name?" Cameron walked over from her spot next to the coffee pot and handed House a red mug.

"Not while he's my patient. The disease is my patient, not the home where it lives," House took a gulp of his coffee and leaned on his cane. "Okay what do you see?" He motioned towards the light board with his coffee mug and took another sip.

"Besides the obvious?" Foreman asked sarcastically and motioned to the gigantic mass in the temporal lobe.

House shrugged his shoulders and took another sip of coffee. He glanced sideways at Wilson who was standing near the door.

"The obvious.. and maybe.. more.."

He knew full well that there wasn't anything else there besides the huge terminator brain tumor that was killing this kid. He wasn't sure why he took that exact moment to toy with his team, but he liked to always keep them on their toes. Maybe there was more on the scan. Maybe there was something else that would cancel out the tumor. Ha, yeah right.

Chase leaned into the scan closely and pointed to a very bright white line, "This is probably something."

Foreman and Cameron leaned in to look as well.

"Looks like a lesion," Cameron observed.

"Very good, see Chase is always looking," House said towards Foreman. Chase grinned. Foreman sighed and looked away.

House rolled his eyes and walked up behind the three of them. He leaned in his head, took a deep breath and blew at the scans. The sheets fluttered at the bottom and the white line disappeared.

"Lint," he said in response and went back to his spot near the counter. Chase shuffled his feet and Wilson smirked from the door.

"Well I don't see anything abnormal.. besides the obvious," Foreman said with more impatience in his voice.

"Bingo bango. Go break the news. Cameron, tell him he's dying. Go round up an OR. " House started over to Wilson on his way out the door.

He thought he heard Cameron mutter a 'why me?' from behind him but didn't care. Foreman was great at breaking news. Cameron needed a lot of work. She needed to learn how to tell someone they had four minutes to live without sobbing uncontrollably by their bedside. Wilson must've agreed with his decision because he fell into step with him walking out the door and didn't say anything about it.

"I thought you said there was more than just the tumor," Wilson said with some humor and dug his hands into his pockets again.

"Correction: I said there was _maybe_ more, you really should pay more attention Dr. Wilson, I'm very disappointed in you," House answered and checked his watch.

"So where are you going now?"

"Home, or maybe I'll stop by that cute strip club by your place. I hear you have VIP access and free lap dances for a month saved up on your punch card."

Wilson smirked. He _wished_.

-----

Cameron paused outside of Patient X - Jason Adler's room before entering. She hated this part of being a doctor and she hated it even more that House knew about it. He liked to make her life a living hell. During Med School, she never really gave much thought to this part of the job. She had studied her terminology for hours into the night, aced her exams, and knew all the technical aspects of the profession of her choice. She just figured telling the patients the bad news would be like readng them a textbook. Tell them the problem and that would be it. But once she looked through the glass at the mother and father gathered around a young aspiring pro baseball player, everything she knew and had rehearsed went out the window.

Yes the kid would get the surgery. But the tests she had performed herself told her that there wasn't a very good chance that surgery was even going to help anything. The tumor was in the worst malignant stage. Even if they did open him up, they wouldn't be able to get all of the canerous cells out without killing him. House knew that, and that's why he had ordered her to let them know that their child was going to die, regardless.

Taking a deep breath, Cameron slid open the door and stepped inside. The parents didn't flinch from their position hunched over the bed. Jason lay there, looking worse than he had before when he had been checked in. Something tugged at her heart at the site as she remembered her late husband. But this was definately not the right time to be thinking of all of that.

"Mr. and Mrs. Adler?" she asked quietly, not wanting to disturb them, but having to do so anyway. Mrs. Adler swatted away an unwanted fly and turned to her. She had the face of someone who knew everything. Perhaps a mother's instinct was more creditable than anyone would have known. "Can I speak to you outside for a few minutes?"

The parents said nothing and followed Cameron outside of the ICU room. Jason laid there, eyes wondering around. Cameron didn't even know if he was even coherent enough to know what was going on.

"We ran some tests.. and your son has a Stage 3 malignant tumor growing in his temporal lobe," Cameron told them as delicately as she could. Mr. Adler stood behind his wife and tightened his hold on her shoulders as the effect of the words stung into him. His wife nodded.

"He's going to need immediate surgery, and we'll try to get most of the tumor out, but in this stage.. it could be fatal," Cameron almost choked on the last word but regained composure. The mother's face crumpled at the last word and tears slid down her cheeks. She knew it had been coming, but hearing the doctor say the words just made it more _real_.

"I'm so sorry.." Cameron added sincerely, not knowing what else to say. She was trying not to get too attached. Trying to follow House's advice. Wilson's advice. But she was human.

The mother looked down and her husband took her into his arms, visible tears in his eyes as well.

"We're going to get him into surgery right away.."

Another tug at her heart and Cameron had to look away for a second. "There is still a chance.." she added quietly. Her mind screamed at her for throwing that in. Yes there was a chance, but that chance was less than House grabbing her in the hallway and confessing his undying love.

The couple didn't seem to hear her, and they started back into the room to say their goodbyes to their son. Cameron stood there watching them, holding her clipboard.

-----

House strolled in around noon. His damn _alarm clock_ didn't go off. Usually he was pretty good with getting his ass out of bed and into work. He would get up earlier even, have a coffee, catch a tv show, look over some case notes. But he supposed it was going to happen sometime. Everyone experienced it sometime in their life. Eyes snap open to the unusual amount of sunshine pouring into the bedroom and then a chain of swears is let off once the eyes flicked over to the glowing numbers on the bedside clock. He could have made a mad dash for his car to not upset Cuddy.. but nah. He did what he always did. Took a too-long shower, finished off a pot of coffee, and read the newspaper cover to cover. House, for once, just didn't feel like going into work and facing all of that. He would anyway, the little trooper he was, but what he wanted was to lay on his couch and watch a few episodes of Judge Joe Brown.

"House! Clinic!" A voice called from behind him. House lowered his head and made a dash for the elevator. Maybe she wouldn't know it was him. Maybe the cane wouldn't give it away this time. The footsteps proved him wrong. He reached the elevator and pressed the 'Up' button, praying for the stupid thing to come down faster.

"Clinic duty, you're late," Cuddy reached his side and ordered. House kept his eyes looking up, waiting for the doors to open.

"I can't, I have a case. So sorry to disappoint you," he responded still waiting for the doors.

"You don't have any case," Cuddy replied. House looked at her.

"The kid upstairs.." He chose his words carefully. He knew that there wasn't much for him to do with the kid, but he hoped she didn't know that.

"The brain tumor? How is that a case? He has a brain tumor, he's being rolled to the OR in a few minutes." Cuddy crossed her arms. House closed his eyes and tried to will the elevator doors to open. ("They're going to open.. now.. They're going to open.. NOW! ... NOW!")

"It's not just a brain tumor."

The elevator doors shot open, House sighed in relief and he scurried into the empty box.

"Yes it is; I checked the scans myself-!"

"Sorry, I have to go save a life," House smiled and the doors slid shut in her face.

And the Round One points went to a certain Dr. Gregory House.

-----

After dropping off his bag in his office and checking his empty e-mail box, House decided he should probably make an appearance near the patient's room in case people started to talk. Maybe if he was around there it would look like he was doing something.

The mother (presumably - if it was a girlfriend, he would be worried) was sitting next to her son's bed, holding his lifeless hand. House stood outside the room and looked through the glass at Foreman who was adjusting IV bags. He finished up and went to go meet House out in the hall.

"Why has he not been through surgery yet?" House demanded and looked at his watch. He knew what time it was, but seeing the time on his watch just made it more pathetic.

"OR was booked up all night. There was a stabbing incident down at one of those nightclubs, and Jason was pushed back until morning," Foreman informed. "He'll be going up any minute though."

House sighed and took another look inside the room.

"How's the kid," he asked still looking straight ahead. The kid did not look good. Not as good as he had looked in the clinic the day before, that's for sure. Dark circles sat under his eyes like rainclouds, he was sweating profusely. He looked to be sleeping, but his face was twitching into snarls and other facial expressions. Nightmare?

"..Well let's just say he needs that surgery. Although you and I both know that even that isn't going to help him," Foreman replied and looked at the kid. He didn't need to explain any symptoms, House could see all just by looking at him. House was so good, he could tell you your resting heart rate just by looking at your face.

"Page me when he's out," House grunted and started walking back to the elevator. There was nothing else he could do but wait.

-----

"Clamp," the surgeon held out his right hand, and a tool was slapped down onto his glove. All that was heard was the steady beat of the heart monitor and the respirator. So far, so good.

"Suction."

Silence.

The surgeon looked up and around at his team.

"Where is it?" He asked and stopped all movement with his hands. Silence.

"Where is what doctor?" A nurse on his right side asked, her voice coming out muffled from the mask on her face.

"The tumor - there's nothing here," the surgeon looked down confused at his work and poked around a little bit.

"This is the right patient right?" A nurse from his left side asked frantically and her eyes grew wide above her mask.

"Yes, It's him," the first nurse answered.

"Well I don't know what's going on here, but this patient has no brain tumor. His brain is perfectly healthy," The surgeon paused. "I'm going to close."

-----

House paced quicker than usual in the conference room, his hand stuck to his chin in deep thought. He stopped and glared down at Cameron who was sitting at the table holding a file.

"What do you mean he has no brain tumor."

"He's clean, they found nothing," she answered just as baffled as he was.

"He _has _a tumor, it's _there_," he grunted in response and started to pace again.

"Maybe it's one of those ghost tumors, disguises itself to look like healthy tissue," Chase spoke up from beside Cameron.

House almost laughed. He almost wanted to tell him to go play with his blocks in the corner and to let the doctors work. He ignored him instead.

"How is the kid doing now?"

"He's actually doing better. All his levels are coming back up and when he woke up, he had no idea that anything had happened at all. Just a regular.. kid," Foreman took the liberty of answering that one.

"Run another MRI. Something is fishier here than a hooker's bedsheets," House started for the door again and the three started to stand up.

House made his way to his office, and for one of the first time in his career, he was lost. He had seen the tumor, all the symptoms fit, this was supposed to be an open and shut case. Tumor death.

What the _hell_ was going on here?

-----


	3. Peaches

**Title:** Hex

**Rating:** T

**Genre: **Angst/Drama

**Pairings:** No specific pairings - Friendship

**Summary:** After "treating" a patient for a serious condition, Dr. House starts to exhibit the exact same symptoms himself. But it's nothing he can medically cure with a perscription - It's demonic possession.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I'm trying to make these chapters really long, so that's why it's taking me a little bit of time to get them up. I hope the length makes up for the wait. Enjoy :D

**Hex - Chapter 3 _Peaches_**

_"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." _

_- Oscar Wilde_

_**-----**_

"What do you mean there's no tumor? You cut my son open for nothing!" The father raged and Cameron grimaced a little at the huge outburst coming from the little man. Anyone would have thought the father would be happy. Maybe his son wasn't going to die so soon. She looked down at the kid laying on the bed with his head shaved and bandaged up. He was sleeping, but surprisingly, his color had improved dramatically.

"Yes but-" she started to say that it was actually a good thing. It meant that now maybe the kid had some sort of chance.

"Did you not hear me? You _cut open my son's head_, and you were wrong!" The father raged again.

"Mr. Adler, all of our tests proved that your son definitely has a brain tumor. It was very easy to detect.." Foreman piped in, in that calm voice of his to try and explain the situation better.

"So what's wrong with Jason then?"

"Dad, stop." Jason had his eyes open and he was trying to sit up a little bit. He coughed and Chase offered him a small cup of water.

Mr. Adler spun around and went to his son's bedside.

"I'm fine, stop yelling at them. I was going to shave my head anyway," Jason smiled and Mrs. Adler laughed through her tears as she gripped his hand so tightly it was almost turning purple.

"His stats are all up again.." Chase noted, looking at all the monitors while the parents gushed towards their son. "This is bizarre," he added and looked over at Cameron and Foreman who stood at the foot of the bed. Foreman quickly paged House.

They all looked at the happy family "reuniting". The kid looked like at the worst, he had a small cold. He looked like he could just get up and go home at anytime. Something very rarely seen in terminal cancer patients.

-----

That night House sat at his desk with a mystery laid out in front of him. The lights were off and only the soft glow of a lamp illuminated the documents. He sat in his chair, the cane between his legs, his chin resting on the handle. Usually when he was trying to crack a case he'd do something to which another would consider a distraction. He'd kick back with his ipod, play a few games on his gameboy, or watch tv until the solution just crept up and bit his brain. Not this time though. He just sat and stared at two MRI scans of the same patient, taken only a day apart. One had a massive tumor, the other one was clean. He dug his chin into the handle moved in small circles completely stumped.

How was that even possible? How can someone have a tumor one day and have it disappear the next without a trace? How can a patient be dying one day and then talking about baseball the next? How?

House leaned back in his chair and let his head roll back as his gaze fixated on the ceiling. He tossed his cane from the right hand to the left again still in deep thought. About what?

He was hungry. For.. Teddy Grahams! But what kind.. chocolate, vanilla, or those chocolate chip looking ones.. He would have to go with chocolate. Biting off their little heads was just too sweet. He liked to play with them in front of Wilson and mimic their voices (_"Nooo don't eat mee..."_)._ --_

Okay stop it, back on track. That's right. The magic David Copperfield 'Now you see me, now you don't' tumor. The one that liked to play peek-a-boo. Peek-a-boo .. What did that game mean anyway? How could that ever impress a child? If he ever had a son, his kid would call him an idiot for just putting his hands over his eyes. It wasn't "cute", it was lying, and very bad lying at that.

A fly buzzed around near the ceiling and started lowering itself to House's head. He brought his cane up and went to swat it, but it zigzagged and flew off. What was with all of the flies all of a sudden?

House sighed and looked back down at the scans. He was so tired and if he wasn't able to figure out this whole thing tonight, he was afraid he never would. He pushed away from his desk in preparation to go on home when that damn fly buzzed past his face again. He watched it for a few seconds and then moved rapidly and caught it with his right hand.

"Gotcha.." he smiled devilishly and looked at his tightened fist. He could feel it squirming within his grip. After a few seconds of satisfaction , he opened his fist into the air.. to find it empty. No fly.

House looked at his hand, turning it over.

Why did he keep playing Jesus? Why was everything around him disappearing?

Without another thought, he stood up slowly and started on his way home.

-----

He was dreaming. But he _knew_ he was dreaming - so was it really dreaming? It wasn't one of those stupid dreams where he was running naked through a football field; He didn't even seem to be in the dream at all. In fact, nothing was in the dream. Nothing physical that he could identify anyway. More like.. colors, textures and feeling. And not a good feeling either. No, this wasn't the fluffy teddy bear, Valentines, Santa Claus feeling.. this was something he wouldn't be able to explain for a billion dollars. It was just.. strange. And unnerving.

Making it into work that morning was almost a challenge for House. His alarm clock didn't go off _again_ but his trusty biological clock had decided to jar him awake and nearly at the right time. It wasn't just his own body kicking his ass out of bed, the nightmare-ish vision he'd had while sleeping had jolted him awake. He didn't know whether it had been the weird dream, or the fact that he hadn't eaten in a while, but there was a small headache developing at his left temple as soon as he passed through the Princeton-Plainsboro doors. He had a feeling that it was going to get a lot worse as he entered the clinic packed with screaming kids (snot) and cooing parents. Flu season. Just peachy and grand.

House made a dash for the elevator like he had done the previous day, even though he wasn't scheduled for the clinic. If Cuddy saw him, he was sure that he would insist that clearing out the clinic was more important than him up in his office catching daytime TV, and bouncing a ball against the wall to waste away the hours.

Maybe today he would get a new case.. He thought that, but strangely didn't even care whether he did or not. He felt almost indifferent. Not caring. _Whatever_ attitude today, and he wasn't sure what had caused it. He made it into the elevator before an old man could drag his IV pole over first, and pressed his floor button about 6 times before leaning back and letting the doors close. _Still got it.. _House mused.

His pace was slow, and he relied more on his cane with each step towards his office. He had popped a few vicodin before coming into work as usual, but for some reason the sweet sensation wasn't fixing his leg like it was supposed to. His whole freaking day was off, and from what? A busted alarm clock that he wanted to throw at the wall? A stupid headache that he never, ever got? The old man with the IV pole downstairs racing him to the elevator?

House dropped his bag on his desk when he noticed the small mess he had left behind the day before. The MRI scans. The puzzle was back to haunt him and make him stare at the wall for another 24 hours. He collapsed into his chair and brought out his bottle of pills. The bottle was quite light. He only had one left. How could he not have noticed that one before? Great, time to make another big deal about the whole thing with Wilson. He took the pill, recapped the canister and looked down at the scans again, hoping maybe a night of sleep (right, that's what it was) would have refreshed his vision. Time to play a little Sherlock Holmes and get down to business.. in a few hours.

He pulled his bag down to his lap and began sifting through the contents when he sensed a prescence was going to bug him from the door. He didn't look up and just hoped whoever it was would just go away.

"If you're looking for your brain in there, I have some bad news.." Wilson piped from the door.

House made a face, but didn't look up. "Oh darnit, that's right, I packed it in that blue tupperware two days ago.." He looked up and gave his friend a disgusted face, "So _that's_ why my dinner yesterday tasted so funny."

Wilson sighed in amusement and took a few steps closer to House's desk. He was probably looking for a loose vicodin, judging by the empty bottle sitting on the corner of his desk.

"So the kid was released," he told House instead andstuck his hands in his pants pockets this time. House didn't seem to hear him and pulled a tiny game cartidge out of the bottom end of the bag and looked at it as if he'd just found a hundred dollar bill.

"Final Fight, I've been looking for you everywhere!" he exclaimed with glee and then turned to look at Wilson, "I'm sorry, did you say something?" He tossed the bag on the floor.

"Nice to hear you're still just as concerned with your patients as always.. The kid was released," Wilson smirked and informed him once again, watching as he pulled out another game and put his beloved Final Fight in the gameboy.

"Jesus Christ you mean?" House finally put his gameboy aside and leaned back in his chair looking up at Wilson. "So can you tell me why his tumor disappeared? I missed the last episode of the show where it turns out it's really his twin brother who came in here yesterday, the one who's dating his sister's wife but secretly cheating on her with his massage therapist, the foreign immigrant named Rocco."

Wilson stalled and gave him a look, "Seriously, you watch too much TV. But no, I have no better explanation than you do at this point. Even that ridiculous chain of words you just rambled off at me a second ago."

"You checked him out yourself?-" House started to ask, but was interuppted.

"Inside and out."

"Clean?-"

"Clean."

"Well I guess little Jason can run back to all his baseball pals and then cram into his mother's van so they can all go get icecream after winning the little leagues," House shuffled aside the MRI scans. He wouldn't get rid of them just yet, but probably save them in a "vault" so he could pick them up in forty years to see if he could figure out the mystery then. Until then however, the puzzle had got the best of him.

"He's eighteen years old, I hardly believe he's going to be competing in a championship for twelve year olds," Wilson retorted and started on his way out of the office. He paused, his hand on the door handle, knowing full well that House hadn't heard the kid speak of baseball, "How did you know he was into baseball?"

House shrugged.

"Hunch."

-----

"Fiddle dee dee, fiddle dee dee, the fly has married the bumblebee." House sat in his chair with his forehead resting on the edge of his desk, staring at the floor. "Said the fly, said he, 'Will you marry me and live with me sweet bumblebee?' Fiddle dee dee, fiddle dee dee, the fly has married the bumblebee."

Silence.

"Oh they're just not trying anymore are they. That was the stupidiest nursery rhyme I've ever heard." He didn't raise his head as he talked to himself.

His headache had not went away. Of course not, it was inside his head, it was comfortable and wasn't going to leave. In fact it had dialed it up a notch, so much in fact, that he was partly resting his head just for the coolness of the desk under his forehead.

"House," a female voice alerted him from the door but he didn't raise his head. The voice wasn't important enough for that sort of exertion.

"Dr. Greg House is happy to inform you that he is not in right now. But if you'd like to leave your name and number, don't, because he won't get back to you. Don't leave a message after the beep."

"House-"

"Beeeeeeeep."

"House, the clinic downstairs is packed and three of my doctors called in sick, this flu season-"

"What part of don't leave a message after the beep don't you understand?" House raised his head to look at Cuddy who was full inside his office now with her hands linked together. She was trying to ask him to be _nice _and do her a favour.

Cuddy raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms. "No need to be snippy about it."

"No, snippy would be me not sugarcoating what I would really like to say, now which version would you like to have the pleasure of hearing? Hm, Lisa?" he narrowed his eyebrows and asked her without really expecting an answer. She would just give him and look and leave his office without another word, that's what he was hoping for anyway.

She didn't answer his rhetorical question, as he expected.

"You look like crap," was all she said instead.

"Gee, ya think?" he made a face. Cuddy left and he was grateful. He actually hadn't planned on being that, dare he say rude, but the words had just flowed out before he could even think of them. The headache was what was bothering him the most now and he was starting to get sensitive to light, which was always a bad sign. Maybe he could catch some ZZs in his office before anyone raced back to consult Father House.

-----

_Colors.. textures.. what the hell is this? _

"Dr. House-"

"What!" he sat up quickly now awake and then immediately groaned from the light and rubbed his aching neck.

Cameron stood at his door holding a folder and looking wearily at him, wondering if she really should have woken him up. He had been sitting at his desk, cane knocked over onto the floor, forehead down on the smooth surface of his desk. But she knew that he was just most likely bored and needed a new case to work on. Something to get his mind off the strange tumor with the last one. She knew he couldn't stand it if he couldn't solve the big mystery. The file she held in her hand he could probably solve though.

"Well if you're just going to stand there, then take your clothes off or something," House rolled his neck around trying to loosen out the knot that had devloped after sleeping in the awkward position.

Cameron ignored his perverted comment and walked forward with the file. Cuddy was the one who had brought her attention to the case, and she had recommended Cameron run it up to House because she had visited him earlier.

"I think you might be interested in this one," she held out the file for him to take. He didn't even acknowledge it, but instead picked up his empty vicodin cansiter and scowled.

"Not interested," he dismissed and then spotted his cane laying on the floor. He must've leaned it up against his desk before he drifted off, passed out, or died - one of the three. His leg was killing him as he started to lean over to pick the hunk of wood off the floor.

"Patient presented with severe abdominal pain, pain in the throat, diarrhea, vomiting, and loss of vision-" Cameron started to recite from her memory of the case notes. Her eyes trailed to House struggling to grab his cane, wincing as he leaned over, his right hand grasped around his thigh.

"I said, I wasn't interested." He said between grunts. Cameron sighed and walked to the side of his desk to just grab his cane for him. No use for him going through all of this trouble if she was fully capable of helping. Right as she was about to bend down, his cold blue eyes were burning on her and yelling at her to stop. She took the hint and backed away, wondering if she should really be pushing this or not.

Cameron stood there for a few more minutes being tortured by the uncomfortable silence and staring at House attempt to pick up the cane, him making all sorts of facial expressions. Suddenly his head snapped to her direction.

"So do you mind?" he exclaimed angrily, eyes showing pain and embarrassment. Cameron shook her head slowly and whispered, "Sorry" in response before scurrying out of the office.

House took one last effort and grabbed his stupid cane off the floor. His temperature was up, he could feel it. Just peaches, now he had a fever. _Peaches_.

-----


	4. Phase 1

**Title:** Hex

**Rating:** T

**Genre: **Angst/Drama

**Pairings:** No specific pairings - Friendship

**Summary:** After "treating" a patient for a serious condition, Dr. House starts to exhibit the exact same symptoms himself. But it's nothing he can medically cure with a perscription - It's demonic possession.

**A/N:** Woohoo Chapter 4 and I still have more material left. Thank God I planned out this thing before starting to write. Thanks so much for the reviews, I hope you guys like this chapter!

**runs with scissors:** Nah I just named it Peaches for the sarcasm effect.

**N.Beresford:** Haha! You know I didn't even realize I pretty much covered all the meningitis symptoms until you mentioned it. However the neck pain was just from sleeping awkwardly, and the sensitive to light part was just because he woke up. I don't have House jumping to diagnose to himself because in my view he's excellent at looking at other people, but when it comes to himself he brushes it aside and doesn't want anyone to know or worry about him.

**Hex - Chapter 4 _Phase 1_**

_"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." _

_- Oscar Wilde_

_**-----**_

_Thump.. thump.. thump.._ The ball hit his shoe and then rolled across the floor and hit the far wall. What a waste of a day, waste of a life. He was tired of having this personal little pity party about his new sickness all by himself, and thought maybe if he did something else his brain power would fight off the fever with little swords and canes. That was just wishful thinking though, he was feeling worse. And it had only been a couple hours. Since when did sickness' creep up that fast anyway. He almost wanted to break out the whiteboard and start diagnosing himself, but figured it would be a waste of time since what he most likely was catching was the flu. It was flu season and all, as Cuddy had mentioned earlier. No big deal. A crappy head, maybe a puke here and there, and gone in 48 hours. He could tough it out like the little wounded soldier he was.

House shifted his position and leaned back in his chair, left leg propped up on the corner of his desk. He let his head roll back and almost felt like he was drunk.

He was tired too. After the whole Cameron incident which he hadn't gave much more thought over, he had begrudgingly tracked down Wilson and waited impatiently for him to write out a perscription for a refill of his precious vicodin stash. He remembered staring at the floor the whole time, and not making jokes about his friend's writing looking too feminine or any of that. After getting his bottle refilled, he had retreated back to the privacy of his office, clenching his jaw and not saying a word to anybody, not even Wilson who had given him a few looks.

He thought of popping out his little tv and channel surfing for something decent but decided the effort to fish it out of his bag was too much and just continued sitting there, staring at his ball across the room like a wounded four year old.

So many patients he had treated had seen right through his exterior. Knew that he was really a coward behind all the snide remarks and that he didn't just have a wall up, he had a whole goddamn brick building for protection. He had been living this way for so long, that that's the only thing he knew and that seemed right. He cured patients everyday, but the only person he couldn't seem to cure was himself. What made him think that the patients' lives were worth more than his?

He made his head level again, closed his eyes, and starting drawing imaginary circles on his right thigh, over the jean fabric. He would never admit that he hurt any place other than his leg. His leg was his defense. _Oh, House looks sad today? His leg is bugging him. House is pissed off at the world? His leg. House is actually feeling something other than a dead feeling? He must be high on vicodin. _In some ways he almost enjoyed having the handicap. It was his wall. Nobody could break down the leg. It was the grand excuse over all excuses. Now Cameron on the other hand, if she was sad, or angry, there was automatically some drama going on in her life that everybody had to know about. But not House. He even thought about getting a t-shirt that read on the back, "It's not me, it's the leg" and then he would never have to talk to anybody. Nobody would even be brave enough to challenge the shirt and stare into the commanding eyes of Greg House and tell him wrong. To ask him a direct question, ignore all of the sarcasm and wait out a real answer. No sir. He walked down the hallways and people scattered. He liked it that way, but sometimes he didn't. Nobody would ever know. Not while he was alive anyway.

He roughly rubbed his hands over his face and willed his mind to just shut up and think about Gilligan's Island, or something more playful. Deep thinking was bad and he wasn't known to do it that often. Deep thinking was a symptom. He didn't even want to think of the "disease" that would be causing the symptom, but it was there lingering in the back of his brain. Clinical depression. There, he had thought it. Now what? Was he going to turn into a pile of goo and go crash through the hallway sobbing and looking for flowers to smell and people to hug? Not likely. He would stuff that word back in the 'mental problems' box where it had come from. He'd need a bigger lock too. House was _crazy_, but not that sort of crazy.

His eyes opened and he stared out the glass doors out into the hallway as people walked to and fro, not even giving him a glance. Leg up on his desk, staring off into space. They were "scattering". His fever hadn't let up either. That was the problem then. The temperature was making him nuts. That's all it was, and felt a relief that all of this crap would be gone in a few days. He didn't need all of this stupid feelings creeping up in him again.

His glance went off the door and went towards the wall directly in front of him. The sunbeam from the window sat in a rectangular shape, and his eyes went around the outside, tracing.. What was light.. Light couldn't exist without darkness. The office had the light on, so what made the sunbeam that much lighter..

"House,"

There were no real 'days' because in reality, each day just repeated itself, over and over. Not just in daily events, but in a global aspect. Calender and time were made by man. Man did not create the universe. Maybe a true day equaled a year. Maybe there were no such things as days because who actually decided that when we sleep is the end of a day.. -

"Goddammit House!"

_Snap_. And a _crackle_ and _pop _while he was it. Cuddy had again morphed into his office without him even noticing. How did that keep happening? He just wanted to be left alone, why didn't anybody get that.

His eyes moved slowly over the few feet and sat on her face. She was blurring around the edges just slightly.

"I need you down in the clinic now. Don't give me any comments, or any remarks about my blouse, just do it."

He had almost smiled at the fire raging within her (scatter) but resisted the urge to curl the sides of his lips up into god forbid - a smile. So he had won the first battle, she had rehearsed in her office for a few hours, and now she was back, pointing fingers and reading the script she had written down on her hand with a bic pen. It was a beautiful moment. He had barely even noticed that she had just ordered him to the clinic. He said nothing, but just stared at her.

"Well, did you hear me?" she prompted eagerly and threw out her hand, eyes widening.

House broke his gaze with her, swung his left leg off the desk, slowly took his cane and eased himself up from the chair. His head swam, and he slowly limped past her and out of the office living her alone and confused. She whipped around on her heel, and raised an eyebrow as she watched him walk away.

-----

Down in the clinic, House realized that Cuddy hadn't been lying. Every seat was filled and even a few strays stood against the wall, waiting to be seen. He had sort of expected that. Cuddy never asked him for "favours" unless she was desperate. She knew there was no point in asking him to be considerate of someone else because he'd just stall and stall until the one asking the favour would just get frustrated and give up.

Not feeling excited enough to complain he took the file without a word to the nurse and made his way over to Room 2. He just hoped that he could get through the day without having to change his clothes, hose off his cane in the men's room again, or attempt to examine a kicking and screaming kid's ear. House placed his hand on the door and pushed it open. Sure, he could have looked at the file to find out who he was going to be spending time with for the next five minutes, but he liked to be "surprised".

The coughing and sneezing from inside is what alerted House first, as he entered and shut the door behind him. A heavyset middle aged man sat on the bed, arms flailing around as his body as he sneezed and coughed repeatly, his plump face turning a cherry red.

House raised his eyebrows and took a seat next to the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. He sat patiently and waited for the man to calm down. The guy sneezed loudly and then it was quiet, as he continued to make various 'sneezing faces' waiting for the next one to come along.

"Are we done yet?" House asked the guy, but was cut off by that anticipated sneeze and cough.

"I-" the man sneezed, his head whipping down at the action, "can't stop," he coughed loudly and sneezed again, "sneezing and," he paused for more attacks.

"Yeah, yeah, I already got that part," House leaned his head against the wall behind him and closed his eyes for just a second. He opened them again, and rolled his eyes at the man in front of him in the cut-off shorts and white t-shirt that had "Class of 1981" scribbled across his chest in 'ancient t-shirt making' technology font.

The guy was going to ask him further about why he couldn't stop, but was interuppted again by more sneezes.

"Maybe you should stop the cocaine," House told the guy smugly and opened his eyes a little bit as if telling Mr. Snot that information would be doing him a favour.

The guy hacked wildly, not even bothering to cover his mouth with his closed fist anymore, and gave House a look in the process.

"Co-" Cough. "-aine?"

House put his full weight on his cane and stood up. He could have sat there all day with the man, waiting for him to spit out a sentence between spasms, but frankly the noise was making his headache worse. The guy was annoying him.

"Why did you drink icing sugar?" he asked, and knew the guy wouldn't admit it, even though it was all over his nose and mouth area like he had popped open a fresh bag and just dumped it onto his face.

Through sneezes Mr. Snot was trying to deny it, just what had House expected him to do.

"Stop drinking icing sugar. It's not good for your brain," And with that, he turned and left the room, letting the guy sneeze out the powder alone and look shamefully at his shoes.

Why did he always get the crappy clinic patients. Okay, he didn't _always_ get the crappy ones; he remembered Chase going on and on one day about a kid with explosive diarrhea and a problem with keeping his clothes on - but other than that, he got crap. Gregory House was too intelligent for the clinic. It was an insult for him to even be walking the floors that reeked of some sort of industrial cleaner.

He made his way over to the nurse's station and dropped the file he hadn't even opened back on the desk. He had originally wanted to dump it in a wastebasket, but didn't need a short brunette with clacking heels following him around for the rest of the day.

A fly sat on the counter. Just sitting there, almost staring at him. House's eyes were drawn to it and he locked eyes on it. The nurse manning the "watchtower" slammed down about 20 files ontop of the fly and raised her eyebrow taking the file without any words. A fresh one was immediately stuck into his hand. House didn't bother informing her on the life she had just taken, but just groaned, got another look from the nurse, and checked the time on his watch. Hours and hours until he was free from the hostage situation.

-----

That night the television flickered in front of his face and painted the walls of his place with a blue color.

"T," House said aloud as Pat Sajack waited for the woman from "MISSISSIPPI!" to pick a letter to win her $500.

"Can I have a T!" The woman practically yelled, and began clapping and jumping once Vanna made her walk to overturn 5 Ts.

He rolled his eyes at the happy woman and slouched in his chair further. If that was even possible of course, he was almost practically laying down. _What would make someone so happy winning on Wheel of Fortune. Wow, spin the rainbow wheel and guess the sentence that's up on the stage. Win a car. Win a vacation, or perhaps even a boat. Big deal. Those things just cost more money anyway, so they were probably just paying to win a prize. _

The woman was spinning the wheel again, clapping, jumping, and yelling, "Big money! Big money!"

Why did the audience clap when someone spun the wheel? A retarded four year old with missing arms could spin that wheel. Were they so strong and intelligent for completing that task, they they actually deserved applause? He pondered and cringed as the audience clapped on. Maybe it was an audio track.

"N!" The woman screamed, and squealed when two Ns were revealed.

"Better to bend than to break," House solved the puzzle apathetically and afterwards didn't know why he had said it out loud. As if he had to prove to himself that he was intelligent and could beat a tv show puzzle.

The sound on the show went off stating their were only vowels left and the woman was ordered to solve the puzzle within the time limit.

He watched with sleepy eyes waiting for her to repeat what he had just stated, but she stared blankly at the board, biting her nails.

"Better to bend. Than to break." He told the woman again, hoping maybe this time she'd listen. The alarm went off and the woman's face fell. Sajack went to the next contestent, a man wearing black horn rimmed glasses and a grey suit and asked if 'Paul' could solve the puzzle.

Surely if he was wearing a suit, he could _read_ as well. He stood there just as the woman had and shook his head a few times.

House's eyes perked up and he straightened his back out a bit as the shock of these idiot people on his television screen.

"Hey MORON, READ the BOARD," House said a little stronger now and was almost getting disgusted with humanity.

"Butter the .. bread than.." The man started, shook his head more as he was interuppted by the time alarm.

"Oh my GOD." He was pissed off now, even though he shouldn't have cared about some stupid show that had been on the air for roughly forty years. He picked up his remote and angrily pressed the power button, shutting off the idiots.

Darkness and silence engulfed him and he rested his head back wanting to sleep so bad.

-----

Sleep did not come. Every time he closed his eyes, the red grainy images of what he had seen recently flooded his eyelids. There was almost accompying whispers with the images, but he figured his brain was making all of that up just to torture him and make his eyes look like he was out all night smoking weed with a pack of teenagers. _The Flu.. The Flu.. That's all this is.. Wait it out.. Go to work.. Smile once in a while.. Okay that's pushing it_.

After sipping at a glass of water, making a face and splashing the rest into the sink, House padded into his bedroom to try once more for some much needed rest. He even thought of putting on some soft classical music before getting under the covers, but opted against it knowing he would probably need silence.

-----

By four o'clock he was sitting up in his bed, drenching his t-shirt with sweat and breathing heavily. He felt about 114 degrees. His adrenaline was pumping from some sort of nightmare he still couldn't put into words and his breathing was a little too rapid for a normal sleep session. House looked at the clock, cursed and then fell back onto the pillow.

-----


	5. Leave Me Alone

**Title:** Hex

**Rating:** T

**Genre: **Angst/Drama

**Pairings:** No specific pairings - Friendship

**Summary:** After "treating" a patient for a serious condition, Dr. House starts to exhibit the exact same symptoms himself. But it's nothing he can medically cure with a perscription - It's demonic possession.

**A/N:** Woohoo, okay I think this is long enough for another chapter. I hope you guys likey :) Thanks for reading everyone!

**milady dragon:** You never know right:) I really enjoyed your review because that's exactly what I'm going for. Thank you!

**Hex - Chapter 5 _Leave Me Alone_**

_"Fear is the dark room where the Devil develops his negatives." _

_- Gary Busey_

_**-----**_

Following the night before House was almost pissed off when he awoke the next morning. He hated being sick. Although he tried his best to ignore all of the annoying symptoms, sometimes they seemed to overtake him a little bit and he was slowly breaking down piece by piece. That was why it was best that he just avoid everyone he could and just sit locked away in his office for as long as possible. There was not one person in the world he wanted to talk to, not even Wilson, which said a lot. Usually he didn't mind Wilson around. Who he definitely did not want to see was Allison Cameron. One look into his eyes and she would be freaking out and bringing him hot beverages and drugs. She would also be looking at him with that "pity face" she sometimes had on around him. No thanks. Not today. Not _ever_, actually.

House sat at the desk facing the window with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and stared through the half open blinds. The light from the eight o'clock morning stung his eyes but he was tired of people-watching into the hallway. He didn't want to see _anyone_ and he was quite serious about that statement.

The white blinds in front of him seemed to flutter soundlessly from some sort of hidden draft and he watched each blind move in relation to the other one. Moving slowly, touching eachother in almost some small pattern. The make up of life. Each blind had it's own distinct shadow, yet as a whole, it was all perfect. He could even see the micro texture of the blinds.. His eyes were beginning to blur and he blinked once and hard. That was not going to help the annoying little gremlin headache chewing through his brain wires on the side of his head. He wanted to sleep but knew that there's no way he would be able to, and he almost didn't want to. The nightmares were still fresh, even though he wasn't quite sure why he would call them 'nightmares'.. Nightmares usually involved some sort of one-eyed monster popping out of a closet and coming to eat you, not just weird textured images that morphed themselves beneath his eyelids. Some about what he remembered left him feeling very uneasy, however, and that is what why he filed these into the nightmare category.

He sat in the chair, arms slumped over his legs, cane ditched somewhere.. and he was staring again. The room was growing dimmer, closing in around his vision as his eyes focused on nothing in particular but shapes. The noise from outside his office was gone. The shadows were growing, the light and dark contrast making itself known like an abstract painting. He was no longer even looking at something physical, but something made up of space instead. Something non-existent, yet.. there. His chest stopped going up and down and his breathing died. His heart beat thumped as fuel to his headache and then slowed dramatically. He almost felt dead.

He felt so dead that he didn't even hear Cameron enter his office, clear her throat, and stand there for a bit looking awkwardly at him. He looked like a crash test dummy sitting there, just waiting to hit the wall.

"Dr. House?" she finally asked, shifting her weight to her left foot, gripping the file folder in her hands tensely. The last time they had spoken was when he had barked at her the day before. Maybe he was coming down with something; this new staring thing he was doing was making her nervous.

No response. He wasn't seeing colors anymore, just greys. Not even black and white. Every shade of grey in the spectrum. And they were blending in together..

"Dr. House," she tried again and quite louder this time. Cameron rubbed her forehead and then glanced at the ceiling. She looked back at House and almost jumped ten feet when she saw his stare had shifted to her. His position was almost the same, but the chair had swiveled a few degrees. He let out a sigh and took a deep breath. When had he stopped breathing? He wondered.

Cameron stood in front of him looking quite frankly, freaked out. Big surprise.

"Dr. House are you okay?" she asked with genuine concern and forgot all about the case she was going to ask him about.

"Fine, why do you ask? Did I _scare_ you?" he answered shortly and pulled his chair around to the desk that was facing Cameron.

_That_ scared her, him asking that. Her face went blank for a few seconds as she absorbed his question, but then she remembered the file.

"That patient I was telling you about yesterday? We started him on fluids because he was dehydrated, but Chase noticed a change in the PH of his blood, and his BP is way down," she played with the file in her hands and looked down for a second.

House sat with his hands at his head, thumbs resting on his cheekbones, index and middle fingers massaging his forehead.

"Give me the file," he said and took his hands away, squinting.

Cameron handed him the file without word and watched him open it, and adjust his eyes to reading. She bit her lip as his eyes wandered around the page.

He couldn't read. He couldn't _read_. The blurring was ridiculous and he felt like an eighty year old trying to read a perscription that screamed in capitals YOU NEED GLASSES. House took a minute as he tried to refocus his eyes and concentrate.

"So what do you think?" the doctor in front of him asked in a small voice. So he _had_ scared her.

He could see the words, but they were arranging themselves, like he had some sort of learning disability. Everything was going backwards. Nothing made sense. He immediately slammed the file shut and whipped it with frustration to the edge of his desk near Cameron's hands.

"You're a doctor, that's why you're here right? To fix sick people? Well this guy is obvously sick, so fix him," House turned his chair away from his desk so he wouldn't have to look at her. She was almost stuttering in response as she took the file again. Usually House would have been all over this case, hauling his team to the whiteboard and shooting down their theories one by one.

"What-"

"Why is it that I have to say everything twice? I said I didn't. Want. The case. Get it?" his eyes were burning on her again, just like when she had tried to pick up his cane for him and she felt eerie. She was taken aback by the strength of his voice and backed away slowly.

House watched her scurry away and once she was out of sight, he dropped his head into his hands and almost made a moaning sound. How was it that he couldn't read? Must be the headache. (_Or the leg, the grand excuse_.)

He raised his head again and rubbed his face, when he noticed something.

He slowly lowered his hands and turned his left arm around, looking at it. There was a rash on the inside of his forearm and wrist, red and staring up at him with it's skin disease. He brought his arm closer to his eyes and squinted as he looked at it. That hadn't been there this morning, he was sure of it. House rolled back in front of his desk and took off his watch. It was a tiny bit itchy, but not itchy enough for him to actually dig his nails into his flesh for relief. He ran his right fingertips over the bumps and studied it. It looked like contact dermatitis, but he wasn't allergic to any metals.. The most logical explanation was the watch had given it to him. But that _fast_?

He stuck his arm under a lamp and looked at it again, when his left wrist twitched.

"Shit-" The swear got caught in his throat as he moved his head back and watched his arm as if it had a life of it's own. He wasn't used to have his bodyparts flail without his knowledge. He turned his arm around and rolled his wrist around in circles searching for any type of pain or anything that would had explained the twitch. Felt absolutely fine.

The kid with the brain tumor. His wrist had twitched. The kid with the _brain tumor_.

House rested his elbows on his desk and grabbed at his hair. No way did he have a stinking brain tumor. Brain tumors did not 'jump' from patient to patient.

_But Greg, the tumor did disappear didn't it? Maybe you did "catch" cancer after all_, his mind taunted him.

House turned his chair around again to the side and leaned his head back so he was looking at the ceiling. Red rimmed eyes and sweat beads lingering at his hairline, he laughed uncontrollably.

-----

Cameron sat in the lab, eyes glued to a microscope as she looked at the ten year old's blood for anything abnormal. She knew it was normal for House to be almost rude with some of his comments, but the thing that weirded her out was the fact that he had blown off the case like it didn't interest him what-so-ever. It was so.. unHouse-like. He was sick, probably had the flu. He _had_ been in the clinic the day before. House didn't like to get sick and would never admit that he needed any help.

She took her eyes away from the scope and wrote down a few figures on the pad that sat on the right side. She looked up just in time to see Wilson open the door.

"How's it going?" Wilson asked and stood by her and he looked down at her pad. Cameron was about to basically read back all of her findings, but stopped and simply said, "we need House."

Wilson slowly nodded, looked towards the door and then at Cameron again.

"Has he been acting weird to you at all lately? I know you two are chummy," he asked looking for any evidence of.. well anything.

"I thought _you_ two were the chummy ones." Cameron smiled at the word. "But yes, he seems even more," (_scary_) "annoyed than usual. If that's possible."

"I thought so too. He didn't even seem happy when I wrote him the script for his refill. That's what was most shocking. He's usually flashing the pills all over the place as if they make him God or something." Wilson smirked to himself remembering the time House had been extra happy for some reason and had tried to make Wilson bow to his "highness".

"Maybe he's just mad about Jason Adler," Cameron tried to reason, not fully believing her theory herself.

Wilson rubbed one hand around the back of his neck.

"Yeah.. Yeah that's probably it." He lingered around for a few more seconds and then left the lab. Yes House would probably jump down his throat if he found out that he was worried about him, but that was nothing he could help. He was a doctor, it was programmed in him to worry. He took the next elevator up to House's office.

-----

With full intention of barging into House's office with one liners and an invitation for a bucket of chicken later, Wilson walked towards the diagnostician's office but then stopped short when he saw his friend inside.

Sleeping.

Only House would be snoring in the middle of the afternoon, one leg up on his desk, his chair tilted so far back that it looked like it was going to flip backwards. One thing he did notice though, was his jacket was off and his shirt sleeves were rolled up. That usually only meant two things: Either he had been frustrated with the last case and had spent hours staring at scans and test results trying to figure out where he went wrong, or he was sick and didn't feel like having long sleeves at that point in time. Wilson went with the first option and also figured it was best to save the bucket of chicken bit for later. Maybe the answer would come to him in his dreams.

Wilson walked on.

-----

It was late and House didn't even know how long he had slept. It was almost laughable how much he could get away with at work. Get a massage, have a party, snore in his office with his limps hanging all out. No one had even disturbed him, and he was grateful for that. Surprisingly, he actually felt a _tad_ better. Before he had passed out at his desk, he was just feeling so .. weird. House had been drunk many times, and it had felt like he had drunk himself stupid, but he hadn't even had a drop of alcohol.

He leg had fallen asleep and he eased it off the desk with the use of his hands. The blood flowed back down and the pins and needles started poking at his skin. He looked at his watch and noticed it was time to go home. Had he really slept that long? How was it possible that he had actually slept the entire afternoon with no interupptions? Strange.

_Okay, buddy, time to go home and sit in front of the tv. Maybe get some Chinese or something._

Except he didn't want to stand. It was one of those situations where in his mind he was already standing and walking across the room, but in reality his legs simply didn't want to move. His cane was leaning up against his desk beside him and he took it in his hands, gripping the smooth handle under his grip.

_One.. two.. three._

He didn't stand, or make any attempt to either. Finally he grunted and stood, trying to keep all of the weight off of his right leg just in case. It didn't exactly hurt, but it felt odd. Tingly. As if there was an itch inside his muscle that he couldn't scratch. It wasn't quite a charley horse - but it would probably turn into one if he tried to run around in circles in his office.

He took about three slow steps towards the door, but instead of opening it, he flipped his blinds shut and turned off the light. He sat back in his chair and ran his fingers over the little grooves in the cane, when a fly buzzed past his face. His head snapped to the left as he tried to see the fly in the dark, flying in loops and circles and coming back at his head.

He swatted with his right hand at the bug, missed and it coasted on the right side, doing the same thing. House gripped his cane in both hands like he was holding a lead pipe and waited for the sucker to come back again. It buzzed in front of him and he swatted the cane directly in front of him, hoping to hear the sickening 'thud' of the wood hitting the bug. He missed and it swirled back into the shadows in the left corner of his office. House stared into the corner waiting for it to come out, or to see any evidence of anything moving in there. It came up seconds later and his cane was swung like a baseball bat. Missed again. No wonder he had chosen a career with intelligence rather than athletic ability.

The fly disappeared for good, and House dropped his cane beside his chair on the right side. Who cared anymore about a stupid fly.

House sighed and he went to touch his wrist again. The rash had spread. Now it was from wrist to elbow, and still looked like contact dermatits. He looked at his ceiling and scratched softly, feeling the ruddyness of his skin beneath his fingertips. He didn't even care if he had a brain tumor, twitches coming out of his ears, and a flesh eating disease, he just wanted to lie down. He eased himself onto the floor beside his desk and laid on his back, staring at the ceiling. More shadows and light, interacting with eachother. Light from the window, dark from the blinds, giving him tiger stripes on the ceiling. He raised his hands off the floor and looked at them.

They were shaking. Barely shaking, but they were shaking. Little itty bitty tremors shivering from his wrist to fingertips. Vibrating. He clasped his hands together above his chest, trying to make it stop, but both hands connected and shook together. He made a 'Gah' sound, tore his hands apart and stuck them underneath his head. If he couldn't see them, then there was nothing wrong.

-----


	6. Leave Me Alone Pt 2

**Title:** Hex

**Rating**: T

**Genre**: Angst/Drama

**Pairings**: No specific pairings - Friendship

**Summary:** After "treating" a patient for a serious condition, Dr. House starts to exhibit the exact same symptoms himself. But it's nothing he can medically cure with a perscription - It's demonic possession.

**A/N:** Still going with this one :) I take some time getting these chapters together because I try really hard to have the length as well as have something 'happen' in the chapter so it's not just filler. Hope there's at least a few people still reading! Next one will be better, promise.

**Cat:** Thanks! That's what I was going for. Sure I'm a fan of "The Exorcist", but I thought that would be too much for this story.

**bows to all reviewers** Ah the fly, you guys are too smart :D

**Hex - Chapter 6 _Leave Me Alone Pt. 2_**

"Fear is the dark room where the Devil develops his negatives."

- Gary Busey

-----

"Just two good old boys, never meanin' no harm... Beats all you never saw, been in trouble with the law

since the day they was born.." Wilson sang playfully to himself as he flipped the light on in his office and sat down his things on his desk. A mountain of paperwork sat on the left side and he rolled his eyes. Probably best to get started on that before his day actually begun.

It was quite early, usually too early for Wilson, but he had rode the couch the night before and had woken up around five o'clock. Not wanting to be in the same house as Julie anymore, he had jumped in the shower and escaped to Princeton.

Upon arriving he had noticed a certain red corvette in the parking garage. He had also noticed a certain red corvette in the parking garage when he had left the night before. Weird? Certainly, House was usually knocking down patients to fly out the door after his shift. Impossible? Not entirely.

Wilson stood behind his desk and looked down all the junk that covered the surface. He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck and started out of the office to go see what was going on with House.

-----

Five minutes later Wilson was standing outside House's office debating with himself. The blinds were drawn. Well that was also.. strange. His car was parked down in the garage already collecting dust, so he was most likely in there. Couldn't still be on the tumor case, House wouldn't drive himself insane over a puzzle, that would be going too far. Right?

He rapped softly on the door, usually not being so considerate with House's privacy because he usually didn't care about privacy.. with the glass walls and such.

No answer, what he expected. House probably wasn't even in there. He opened the door and poked his head in. Well House wasn't as his desk, it sat deserted, all electronics shut off for the night. He was about to leave to go check the cafeteria, or even the clinic, but saw him laying on his back on the floor. His first reaction was panic. _Did he have another clot? Heart attack? Is he dead?_ Then he heard the snoring and he sighed and opened the door the rest of the way. He was actually sleeping on the floor of his office with his hands behind his head as a pillow. Wilson shut the door and sat down in the chair in front of the desk and crossed his legs. House wasn't the deepest sleeper in the world, he expected him to wake up as soon as he had entered the room. As if just a "presense" could stir him awake.

Wilson suddenly felt a little evil sitting with his legs crossed, hands clasped together over his lap. He could really do anything he wanted to his friend right now. Smother his hand in shaving cream and pull a feather out of the air to tickle his nose with, break out the bowl of warm water and pretend he was giggling with a bunch of buddies at a college frat party. Oh he could whip out a sharpie marker and write lude comments all over his forehead and cheeks. Or to go for a simplier and faster effect, he could just bend down and yell into his ear.

But that was all a little childish, he figured. He decided to go the chicken route and just candidly cough into his fist, hoping that would do the trick. Nothing. Wilson rolled his eyes and started to move his foot a little starting to feel a uncomfortable. Like he was a sick pervert or something. He sighed again and began to twiddle his thumbs, debating whether he should just yell or what.

"Quit twiddling your thumbs so loud, you're giving me a headache," House suddenly said from the floor still motionless, eyes closed.

Wilson was shocked that House was actually awake and apparently now psychic.

"Is there a reason why you're sleeping on your floor?" he asked and stopped with the thumbs at House's request.

"I've fallen and I can't get up," he said and for a minute Wilson thought he was serious and needed help, but he was just getting his leg pulled. House slowly got to his feet with the help of the side of his desk and sank down into his desk chair. All the events of the day before flooded back to him and he placed his arms under his lap under the desk so Wilson couldn't spot the rash fungus growing up his arm like a tree root. The sleep had done him good. It probably would have felt better laying up in his own bed at home, but there was some sort of feeling that existed the day before where he just didn't want to leave the office. As if as soon as he walked outside the door he would be run down by a bus. Yeah, run down by a bus in a hospital, that's real probable.

Wilson sat and watched him.

"Aren't you going to pop a bottle of vicodin or something?"

_Yes_, House thought, and grit his teeth, _if you leave._ Instead he said nothing and gave Wilson a look sitting across from him, slowly scratching his arm without even noticing he was doing it.

Wilson raised his eyebrow at House's silence and lack of narcissism.

"Are you okay?" he asked, and as soon as the question escaped his lips he immediately regret it. House hated that question most of all, and here was his best friend sitting across from him asking it. His eyes went up to meet Wilson's and he turned a little sour.

"I'm fine," he sat with a grunt and just wished Wilson would scamper away and leave him alone. He didn't need anybody to baby him.

Wilson shifted in his chair, simply looking at House with that 'you're lying, there's something you're not telling me' look.

"And I suppose that rash that you're hiding from me is also fine?" he motioned towards the arm House had tucked beneath the desk. House let out a breath and looked away, annoyed by his friend's super human attention to detail.

"That damn drawer got me again," he replied in an animated voice which suddenly died as soon as he said the statement.

"Let me see it," Wilson urged knowing that he was entering no-man's land, but hoped House would just shut up and listen to him this time, like he had done the last time.

"Get bent," House muttered at his desk and Wilson raised his eyebrow in response, but didn't let it phase him one little bit.

"What's been going on with you lately? Cameron's been to my office several times about your behavior, you're not taking any new cases, you're more rude than usual.." Wilson trailed away from House, but snuck his eyes back to seek out some sort of human reaction.

House stared at the top of his desk.

"You're making yourself sick over that disappearing tumor, aren't you? Even you can't solve that one, so it's slowly eating you up inside, how there is finally something you can't fix with a moment of epiphany-"

"Wilson-" House warned, interuppting.

"-You should just be satisified that the kid got better, who cares how it happened. Maybe he prayed to his God every waking minute and something up there took pity on him, no harm, no foul."

House gave up and put his head down on the desk, forehead resting on the cool surface, face looking down at the floor.

"Talk to me House, tell me what's going on," Wilson urged, but not too desperately.

"I dropped my lollipop while I was jogging the one hundred metre an hour ago," he raised his head quickly, and said as sarcastically as he could ever say anything. His head was lowered afterwards.

Wilson didn't smirk, or snort, or make any sort of humourous expression at all. The situation wasn't humourous anymore, he was concerned.

"What is it, is it the leg?" Wilson asked with a little more rant than he had intended. House snapped up his head. _Oh great_, Wilson thought, _he was about to make a speech. _

"What leg? Why in the world would you even ask about my legs? Why not my arm," he raised his arm and flapped it wildly,"Wow works just fine, maybe I can fly away like a little birdie. My leg is exquisite, thanks for the thoughtful head nod on acting interested with my general well-being. I'm really just a huge leg you know, maybe I need to buy a big huge walking shoe to go with it. What color should I get?" he put his finger to his chin and looked at the ceiling, "What color should I get Dr. Wilson, what color should I get for my huge walking shoe?"

"House," Wilson got the point, House could can the act now.

"Oh no, no, Dr. Wilson," House stood up faster than Wilson had expected in his current 'dead' condition. He walked to the middle of the office without the use of his cane which sat by his desk and threw his arms in the air, the rash in plain sight. Wrist to elbow, Jesus. "I need to choose a color for this big gigantic shoe. Red do you think? Red is the angry color, would fit me well, don't you think? Or maybe blue, because we all know it would 'go with my eyes'. How about yellow? No wait, that's the color of everything that is icky and spilled on the clinic floor."

Wilson narrowed his brow and studied House ranting around like a madman about a gigantic shoe. No cane.. no cane. He's putting weight on his bad leg - how?

House paced around in circles, alternating from having his hands behind his back, to a hand up at his chin as he thought outloud about the colors of the rainbow.

"You know what color I always liked? Black. Yes that's what it should be, one big black gigantic shoe. But oh no, it's not going to a dress shoe if that's what you're thinking, those are for weddings and fancy things." House stuck out his right leg without thinking and jerked around his foot as he looked at his own sneaker. "And do I look like I'm such a fancy guy? Not really." He paced around again and then stopped in mid stride and looked at the wall.

Wilson sat watching him, wondering if he had just lost his train of thought or was done with his episode. House's eyes went from the wall and met Wilson's. It was almost a confused look on each man's face. Wilson didn't know what to say or think after something like that.

The gaze broke, and House went to scratch his red arm as he sat back down at his desk, looking anywhere but the man sitting in front of him.

"Could you just leave me alone," he finally asked, looking defeated, tired, embarrassed and pained all at the same time.

Wilson said not one word and stood up a minute later. By the time he was outside the office, House was still in the same position looking off to nowhere in particular.

-----

Hours passed.. or something. He popped open the vicodin and spilled the whole bottle into his hand by accident.

_What if I just ate all of this_, he thought to himself feeling the pills rolling around eachother in his open palm. Just slam his hand back and crunch down on the whole bottle until white spit was foaming at the sides of his mouth. No, that would be a disgusting discovery for whoever found his body. It wasn't just a matter of eating a bottle of pills and drifting into sleepyland.. There'd be vomit and lots of it, all over the place. He'd turn into a sick freak and would be found dead with claw marks on the floor on his way to the washroom..

He dumped over his hand and let the pills lay out on some paper and popped three before he could think any more.

So what would be the best way to off oneself.

_A hanging?_ Ugh that would just be a weird feeling. Dangling in the air with nothing but a rope cutting into your throat. Not only could you not breathe, but your throat would be hurting the whole time. No thanks.

_The 'ol toaster in the bathtub? _The image of his skeleton ass laying baked in a bathtub with a cooked toaster floating around filled his mind and he shuddered at the thought of someone finding him dead that way. He'd have to put on a pair of shorts first. Toaster was out.

_How about a good ol gunshot to the head? Never fails. _Sure it fails, he'd seen it himself. Guy blows a bullet through his temple, is rescued by a super hero and ends up a drooling vegetable in a wheelchair.

_Okay you're starting to piss me off, how about the fifteen year old angsty slashing of the wrists thing all the kids are doing?_ Oh yeah, like that would work. He'd just be caught sitting in a pool of blood with a box cutter and those big eyes looking up at whoever found him that messed up. Then he'd be strapped to a bed and taken to a padded room.

Before House was aware of what was happening, his left hand held a pen loosly and he was scribbling something on the bottom of a document.

Foreman burst in.

House took control of his hand and attempted to cover up the piece of paper not even having any idea what he'd written.

"Why didn't you take the case?" Foreman demanded and stuck his head forward like he was a chicken.

"Because I'd rather watch TV," House answered dryly, still holding the pen in his left hand.

"You're not left handed." The young doctor pointed towards his hand holding the pen awkwardly. House looked down, tossed down the pen and crumpled up the piece of paper into a ball, tossing it in the garbage behind his desk.

"I can write with my toes too, would you like to see that? It's actually a neat trick," House said in an amazed voice, ignoring Foreman's comment and trying not to look 'weird'.

The young doctor in front of him seemed to eat his words for a second and then brought his voice down a register.

"This is a good case. Something's going on with this kid. Did you even read the file?"

"I glanced at it." House lied. Well, he had tried to glance but that hadn't actually worked to his advantage.

Forman's eyes went down beside House's hands that were gripping eachother on top of the desk, and zeroed in on the whole bottle of pills spilled in a pile. He was about to say something about it, probably a lecture when House raised his index finger to silence him.

"Run along now Eric, you friends are getting lonely on the playground without you."

Foreman rolled his eyes, kept his mouth shut and left the office, beat once again.

House waited until he was out of sight and then deeply closed his eyes taking a deep breath. He then leaned to the side and picked up the ball of paper he had thrown out a minute earlier.

He smoothed it out flat on his desk using his sweaty hands and looked down at the pen scribbles courtesy of his left hand.

**do it now**

was all that was written, all lowercase, written in an angle up the page. He immediately crumpled up the paper again and tossed it back into the garbage can. He'd do nothing.

Right?

-----


	7. Phase 2

**Title**: Hex

**Rating:** T

**Genre:** Angst/Drama

**Pairings:** No specific pairings - Friendship

**Summary**: After "treating" a patient for a serious condition, Dr. House starts to exhibit the exact same symptoms himself. But it's nothing he can medically cure with a perscription - It's demonic possession.

**A/N:** Sorry for taking so long guys! I hope to get a whole wack of writing in this week.. I'd answer each review personally, but I don't want you guys spending all the time reading that when you could be reading the next chapter. So as always THANK YOU all for reading and reviewing, and I'll try to write as fast as I can :)

**Hex - Chapter 6 _Phase 2_**

"Fear is the dark room where the Devil develops his negatives."

- Gary Busey

-----

Wilson dug his hands into his pockets and stood on the elevator staring at the buttons. Up, down, emergency, bunch of numbers. A nurse with her hands gripped onto wheelchair handles stood next to him silently. Well almost silently, he could hear her breathing and it was almost nauseating. He preferred not to get annoyed in the mood he was in and got off the lift at the next floor. The question had been biting at him the whole way down:

What the hell was wrong with House?

He asked himself that every day and usually got a regular answer that House was just House, and _everything _was wrong with him, but there was something else added to the list today.

It was mid afternoon now and Princeton-Plainsboro was in full swing with diseased patients rolling around in chairs, kids doubled over and hacking up a lung down in the clinic, and seniors getting x-rayed for broken hips behind every corner. Wilson made his way back to his office to make his two o'clock appointment with a young couple, one of the two just being diagnosed with lung cancer. He took place behind his desk and glanced briefly at his watch. Half past one. Plenty of time. Wilson shuffled around some papers on his desk and made two neat piles, then looked out the glass doors of his office.

He wondered what House was up to now. He knew there was a case floating around that House had turned down, and that the ducklings were probably hard at work on that one. He had briefly looked over the case file and had ruled out cancer so he had no big part in it. Looked right up House's alley though. Something about a kid with a weird throat problem. He figured instead of just sitting in his office pretending to do work, he should probably go investigate this problem further. He still had a half hour until the appointment, he could just zip over to Cuddy and have a little chat and zip back safely in that time.

-----

Wilson rapped his knuckles softly against the door and then opened it, popping his head in. He knew she usually barked at anyone bugging her like that, but she usually was pleasantly surprised when he did it.

"Ah James, what brings you here?" she asked with a smile and put her pen down on some papers in front of her. Wilson shut the door and gave her a slight sarcastic look.

"What _always_ brings me here?"

Her face fell almost to a doom as she answered, "House."

He nodded and took a seat across from her desk.

"What has he done this time, our lawyer is speed dial number one," she sighed and went for the phone on her left side.

"Surprisingly a lawyer isn't needed this time," Wilson responded, a small smile in response to her joke. "But in all seriousness, there's something going on with him."

Cuddy's eyes grew a size bigger and she raised her eyebrow like Wilson was the stupidest naive person on the planet.

"It's House."

"Yes, but House is not House."

"House is not House? Then who is House?" Here came the confusion.

"House is House, but he's not House," Wilson attempted to clarify. Cuddy gave him a blank look trying to understand what he was getting at.

"He slept here last night," he finally said knowing Cuddy would find that pretty odd.

"Case?" was her immediate thought. Wilson shook his head and crossed one leg over the other.

"His last one, the tumor ..disappeared," he answered back with some hesitation, knowing what her reaction was going to be.

Her eyebrow was raised.

"What do you mean disappeared?" she questioned slowly.

"Disappeared, vanished, cured. Checked, double checked, and triple checked. It was there and then it wasn't," Wilson answered back seriously. He had no intentions of lying to Cuddy, even though she would think he was just as crazy as House.

"And you actually.."

"Yes, with my own eyes."

Cuddy leaned back in her chair and tapped her pen against the pile of papers on her desk.

"So why exactly isn't he 'House'?" she finally asked, curious, but not.

Wilson sighed and looked off to the side.

"Well he's sick for one. Has a rash on his arm that he wouldn't let me look at. He went off in some wild rant about big shoes.." he shook his head, thinking maybe none of this had happened at all, because he was starting to come off crazy just repeating the experience. He glanced at the woman sitting across from him. "He walked without his cane," he added.

"Well he does that all the time-" she reasoned back.

"No, he really _walked_ without the cane. Put weight on it."

Cuddy was lost for words and wasn't sure exactly what to say, or what Wilson wanted her to say.

"Where is he now?"

"I saw him early this morning up in his office. He's probably still there," Wilson hoped. He could also see House raising hell somewhere like the clinic or badgering patients, but the tone of his last statement to Wilson, "..leave me alone" sounded like he would still be closed off and in the dark somewhere.

"Well if he's sick, he's either going to let one of us look at him, or he's going home. Can't have a doctor around patients with a big patch of scabies up his arm." Cuddy promptly stood up from her desk with a mission in mind. Wilson was going to make a note that he didn't think it was scabies, but thought stopping her was more important. He stood up as well.

"I think it would be better if you didn't," he attempted. It was a weak and pathetic attempt, but he had to try none the less.

"You know as much as anyone, that if he's not 'House' then I would say that's a good thing. But you said it himself, he's sick, he shouldn't be here," Cuddy defended herself and walked round her desk towards the office door.

Wilson sighed and knew deep down she was right. He always felt guilty when ratting on his best friend. It was for his best interest, but too much 'love' would leave Wilson with a bruised eye. He stayed silent and let her go. Hopefully she wouldn't mention his name anywhere in her speech.

He left the office after her and made his way back to his own. Couldn't put all of his energy into Greg, he still had that appointment at two o'clock.

-----

_Clack clack clack.. Woosh._

"Oh skippy, my two o'clock is here! Where shall we do it this time? The floor was too hard last time wasn't it? Maybe this time we'll go spread eagle on the desk, what do you think, Bambi?"

Cuddy gave the man sitting in front of her a disgusted look.

"Oh boy am I embarrassed! Bambi is my five o'clock, I'm sorry." House said with equal joy and stood up from his desk with the use of his cane. He had been expecting her after Wilson's departure and had cooked up a few juicy lines guaranteed to make her speechless for a couple seconds. _Stall_, was the word.

"Have nothing to do House? I know a place downstairs that would love to be graced with you presence," Cuddy got over his crude comments quickly and folded her arms. It was better not to let on that she had had a little chat with Wilson. And now that she thought of it, he didn't look sick at all. He just looked like maybe someone had gotten coffee grains into the pot, because he had that sour look on his face every day. Maybe Wilson had been overreacting.

"You know, that just sounds like lollipops and sugarplums, but I think I'll pass this time." House tossed his cane upwards into the air and caught it again giving her a, 'shucks, maybe next time' look. He started to twirl the cane, his own personal sport.

Cuddy raised her eyebrow at him as he stopped twirling, hooked the cane under his arm and then walked around behind his desk to get something.

"I don't pay you because your ability to sleep on the job is so valuable to this hospital-" she paused in mid rant as she actually noticed what she was looking at. His cane was stuck under his arm like a baseball bat no longer in practice, and he was almost wondering around without a thought of that at all. Wilson had been right. No cane, and full use of his right leg - it seemed. She was about to point that out and get answers, when he picked up his gameboy and said quickly, "Aha!".

"How come you're-" Cuddy finally started, flabbergasted. Was he milking her? Was his leg fine?

"Can't stop and chat, Bambi, I've got a patient!" he stuck his right index finger into the sky as if he was off to save the world and then shook his gameboy in his left to her face. He brought his cane down, dropped the game device into his left jacket pocket and made his way out the door at a speed only used in urgent fire emergencies.

A minute later, he opened the door again and peeked his head in, "And they're really sick too! Have you ever seen those national geographic magazines?" He waited for no answer and was back out of the office and making his way down the hall.

Cuddy stayed silent and stood there confused.

-----

He felt good. Better than good. And what was better than good? _Goood_. Yes that was the word. Three Os for emphasis. _Goood_. That reminded him of something. Melted chocolate falling on something like in those hershey commercials. _Goood_ was a gooey word.

House slammed his way into the lab where he knew the three ducklings would be and they looked up, surprised at his entrance. Cameron especially.

"Hello my servants! Top of the morning to you," House walked around to the back of the three of them and leaned over Cameron's shoulder to try and get a look at the chart she was holding in her hands.

"It's actually afternoon-" Chase started to correct, and House shot his head back up straight, and held his index finger up again.

"Silence Bartholomew! That's what they call you back in England right? Sorry I'm not up to date on my British pop culture. I haven't been there in about a week." That shut Chase right up, and he raised his eyebrows directly across from him at Foreman.

"Dr. House, glad to see you're feeling better. Nathaniel Forrest, ten years old-" Cameron started to read off all the information from the chart, but House stood impatiently on his cane, staring at the ceiling.

"And what is this patient's _name_?" he sighed.

Foreman smirked from the side as Cameron looked up from her stool and crinkled her brow.

"Nathaniel Forrest," she repeated.

"Ah Nathaniel Forrest. You know what that reminds me of? Forrest Gump. Great movie wasn't it? Saw it when I was just a boy. In fact, I was that boy in the movie. The actor kid who was running away from everyone. Had to wear those braces when we were on set and I kept my little cane back in my trailer packed in a special wooden case." House paused and looked down back around the three confused faces.

"You know that billion dollar phrase, 'Run, Forrest, Run'?"

Chase slowly nodded in response because that was who House's eyes had zeroed in on this time.

"I wrote it." House's eyes stayed glued on Chase for way longer than necessary and then his head jerked upwards and back towards the ceiling.

"Symptoms of little Gump, shoot," he said impatiently. Cameron was still staring at him with puzzlement painted all over her face, so Foreman jumped in.

"We got his breathing stable after he was crashing earlier this morning," Foreman started in a tone as if he was telling the parents this information and not his own boss.

"-What do you want a cookie or something? Better make yours chocolate," House snapped in, still looking up at the ceiling, counting the panels. Ceiling panels, how interesting those were indeed. A bunch of square things coming together to make one general structure. Working together, the molecules of life tricking his eye into believing that what he was actually seeing was in a solid state. Solid. Reminded him of chocolate again, but now a solid chocolate bar. And chocolate cookies of course. But the bar was better.

"...throat is severely burnt.. Are you even listening?"

House snapped his gaze away from the ceiling and nodded furiously at Foreman who had obviously dictated five minutes worth of symptoms.

"House are you okay?" Cameron asked meekly directly beside him, quiet and concerned. She should be the wearing the sneakers. Always just 'popping' up at his side. Or she could always go be a rodeo clown.

He ignored her question as if she was just a house plant wearing lipstick and lowered his head, thinking for a minute.

"Name is Nathaniel.. something or other?" he asked, quieter this time.

"Forrest," Chase piped out, humored that House had forgotten his big rant about Forrest Gump already.

"The kid is stinking rich. There's your diagnosis! Everybody bow as my godly presence leaves the room," House started on his way out of the lab and just as he was about to open the door, he turned around to see three silenced and confused faces staring at him.

"Come onn, does Big Daddy always have to guide your hand down the yellow brick road? What do rich kids have?" He looked directly back at Chase.

Foreman cleared his throat to speak up, and House's eyes went on him.

"Quiet Eric, stinking rich kids don't steal cars, do they?"

"A pool," Chase answered bitterly.

"Christ, you're smart! Oh wait, that's me, I'm Christ. Now I'm just confused," House put his finger at his chin and left the lab.

The three looked between each other wondering what the hell had just happened.

"Are you sure he's not on any crack?" Chase leaned to his right on the counter and asked the other two.

"He's not on _crack_, he's just ..sick," Cameron defended and adjusted her glasses, looking down at the chart in her hands.

"Yeah, I'd be sick too if I were on crack," Foreman shot back, and Cameron rolled her eyes and stood up from her stool.

"He's not on crack," she said once more and went to leave the lab. As she was opening the door, she heard, "Well he's sure smoking a whole lot of something," and laughter. She rolled her eyes again.

-----


End file.
